Overview
- On Monday, June 22, 2026, Andrea Mitchell announced that Greenspan died at age 100 at home from complications of Parkinson’s disease.
- Greenspan led the Federal Reserve from August 1987 to January 2006, a near‑19‑year tenure that made him a central figure for investors and presidents across four administrations.
- He intervened early after the 1987 stock crash by pledging Fed liquidity and warned of “irrational exuberance” in 1996, actions that shaped the idea of a recurring market backstop called the “Greenspan put.”
- Critics say his support for very low interest rates after the 2001 recession and his resistance to stricter oversight of derivatives helped fuel mortgage credit growth and the conditions that produced the 2007–2008 collapse, a charge he later partly acknowledged by saying he had erred about banks’ self‑regulation.
- After leaving the Fed, Greenspan ran a consulting firm, advised markets and remained a public commentator, and his death has prompted wide obituary reassessments that balance his crisis interventions and long expansion with the policies many now link to the financial crisis.